YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT
SUNDAY 4 OCTOBER 2026 • ISSUE 1405 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY
maltatoday
€2.20
Calling a spade, a spade
Preying networks
Dead bees and ugly
stings; Malta's
oriental hornet
crisis
PL Deputy Leader Alex Agius
Saliba on electoral pledges,
Daphne Caruana Galizia and
EU defence spending
The grooming networks
that use online games
to prey on children
INTERVIEW MT2 PAGES 6-7
Hornet playground
CONTINUES PAGE 3
PAGES 10-11
KURT
SANSONE
ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt
CONTINUES PAGE 4
SUPER BONUS OR FUEL SUBSIDIES
The choice leaving a bitter taste
CLYDE Caruana's hint that the
super bonus, the Labour Party's
flagship election promise, will not
make it into this legislature's first
budget has opened Pandora's Box.
"It's a question of priority,"
the finance minister said mat-
ter-of-factly when unveiling the
pre-budget consultation docu-
ment last week. And the priority
now is to sustain fuel subsidies
that have ballooned to €400 mil-
lion and are likely to remain in
those waters even next year on the
back of global oil market uncer-
tainty.
Caruana even resorted to quot-
ing God's six-day act of creation
from the bible to underline that an
electoral manifesto has five years
to be implemented.
But even if kicking the super
bonus further down the road is a
pragmatic choice, it jars with the
pre-election hype that it could be
sustained despite the internation-
al turmoil pushing oil prices up.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana
Agius Saliba: Labourites still sore over Caruana Galizia's writings
LABOUR MEP and Deputy
Leader Alex Agius Saliba ac-
knowledges some within the
Labour Party remain "sore"
over murdered journalist Daph-
ne Caruana Galizia's writings.
Interviewed by MaltaToday,
Agius Saliba insists Caruana
Galizia was a journalist but
his personal experience of her
writings was different from
the investigative work
she carried out.
"A journalist has the
right to press politi-
cians and parties in
their questioning,
and I also expect
journalists to in-
vestigate, and
that was an im-
portant part of
Daphne's work,
but let's call a
spade a spade,"
he says, when
asked why refer-
ences to Caruana
Galizia still ap-
pear to cause irritation within
Labour.
Agius Saliba says he had been
labelled "ignorant and dumb"
simply because he formed part
of the PL's youth wing at the
time.
KARL
AZZOPARDI
kazzopardi@mediatoday.com.mt
